Tag: exercise

Well, if there’s anything I can say I learned last week week (in addition to chiropractors are dangerous), it’s this:

How very, very grateful I am not to have a permanent nerve injury.

I guess that’s sort of the obvious thing for anyone to say in this situation. But what really surprised me was that my biggest fear was not how difficult daily life was going to be if my nerve issues turned out to be permanent.

Instead, what scared me the most was that I might have to give up my chosen career– or, at least, not be able to do it in the way that I want.

It was sort of a reminder for me, in a way, of how much I really want to become a physical therapist. Because in my daily life, I often get bogged down in the practicalities. The few remaining prerequisites I would need to take in order to apply to certain programs. Taking the GRE (again, that is– let’s not talk about how I scored the first time!).

Last Friday, I consulted a neurologist, and was very encouraged by what she said. On the way home, I stopped in the town of Newburyport, Mass., which is always one of my favorite places to go in the summer.

I could feel my body telling me it was okay to move, that it was okay to start using my legs again. So I walked around and took in the sunset, gathering my thoughts.

And I was just sort of thinking of everything I’ve been working on so far– my classes, my blog, my Youtube channel (I have so many ideas for videos I mean to make!).

And of course, the e-book I’ve been working on– Exercises for the Sacroiliac Joint. It will be quite a bit easier to get back into concentrating on that, now that the question of whether I’ll be partially paralyzed for the rest of my life has been taken off the table.

As I have said before, I don’t necessarily think everything happens for a reason. But as my friend Nicole told me once, “You can make meaning out of things for yourself.”

So there a few lessons I can draw from what happened:

1) I need to explore alternatives to chiropractic adjustments. Who knows where this will take me? Maybe I’ll discover something even better, something that will benefit my future patients and make me a better PT.

2) I have such a better understanding now of what it feels like to have nerve damage. Before, it was something I only could imagine. Now I have felt it– thankfully, only for about a week.

And 3) What a reminder of how much I really do want to do this. I want to teach people, I want to educate (and thank God I’ll still be able to use my own body as a tool to do so with).

Sometimes I feel myself get slowed down by the demands of daily life, and the things I have to do just to get into school. So in a way, it was quite the wake-up call to get in touch with the fear I had, at the thought it could be taken away.

Something I’ve really come to notice during my time with SI joint issues is the effect of my hormonal cycle on my ligaments.

I saw a female pain specialist once who put it very plainly:

I have extremely healthy women come into my office– women who are runners, women who are training for marathons– and sometimes it seems like, during their period, all they have to do is bend over and tie their shoe, and they can throw their back out.

Why does this happen?

Basically, one of the hormones a woman’s body releases in the days leading up to her period is a hormone called relaxin.

As the names suggests, relaxin acts as a chemical messenger that tells our muscles and ligaments to relax. Its main effect during childbirth is to cause the joints of the pelvis to become looser, meaning there is more room for the baby to pass through.

And with more relaxin circulating in our bodies, our muscles and especially our ligaments are going to be a little more slack, meaning there is more risk for injury.

This article from BBC News outlines a few studies that have shown women are more likely to experience injuries in the second half of their menstrual cycles, due to higher relaxin concentrations.

***

I have definitely noticed this going on in my own body. For me, it begins 3-4 days before I get my period, right when I get my other PMS symptoms. All of a sudden, I’ll feel my SI joints start to move around a lot, because my ligaments are not holding them in place as tightly.

There were times when I’d have to promise myself, in those days leading up to and during my period, that I wouldn’t judge my overall progress by the way things were at that moment in time. (I’m sure my plummeting mood didn’t help with my gloomy outlook, either).

I’d really have to talk myself through, and say, I know things really seem that bad right now, but your joints ARE doing better. Just wait a few days and see.

And then, sure thing, once my period had passed, things would go back to normal (or at least, back to baseline anyway).

***

Since my SI joints are doing better now, I don’t notice quite the same extreme fluctuations in my level of function. I have more muscle strength to hold things in place, and my ligaments have had more of chance to heal after my original injury.

However, every month, I can still feel things become a little looser, and my SI joints seem to have a wider range of motion (and not in a good way).

I also notice my hormonal fluctuations impacting other joints in my body as well. I particularly notice it in my knees and in the joints of my fingers. (That sounds totally random, but interestingly enough, finger joints were one of the joints that doctors studied, according to that BBC News article).

***

So, for my female readers, this is something to be aware of.

If you are struggling with chronic pain, it might be worthwhile for you to track how your menstrual cycle impacts your pain.

I honestly was totally unaware of the connection, until that doctor suggested I start paying attention.

Once I knew, it did make things a little easier. I learned not to freak out if things felt worse during a certain time of month, and instead knew to wait, and that it would probably pass (which it did every time).

I continued my experiment at the gym last night, and I think I stumbled upon the beginnings of what something like that would feel like.

Normally, when I go to the gym, I’m pretty much there to use the pool. It’s the one form of exercise I never have to “pay for” in any way afterwards, in terms of pain or stressing out my SI joints. I usually just do my warm-up and cool-down in the pool as well.

So usually, I don’t hang around– I’m just in and out. I head straight for the pool and then make an immediate beeline to shower and leave because, well, I’m freezing. It’s fun, but it’s also kind of rushed. Some days I feel like kind of a robot.

With the lessons from Neil Pearson’s post in mind, I decided to switch things up a little bit.

***

Last night, instead of heading straight to the pool, I first stopped by one of the empty dance studios. I had it all to myself– a big room with a smooth, polished wooden floor and one wall that was all one big mirror.

I had my headphones on, listening to a playlist of music I really liked. And I picked up one of the yoga balls, and just started dribbling it back and forth, to the beat of the music, like it was a basketball.

Now, if you think about this in terms of exercise, it’s not particularly hard. It doesn’t require a ton of strength, and I wouldn’t technically call it cardio.

But, if you think about it in terms of the nervous system, it actually was a bit challenging.

I don’t play basketball. I don’t think I’ve tried to dribble a ball in years. It’s awkward to try to dribble a giant yoga ball… but it’s kind of fun.

However, it does require quite a bit of coordination, especially as some of the songs on my playlist had pretty different beats from each other. With each new song, I had to completely switch up my rhythm.

I ended up getting really into it, dribbling and jamming out to my tunes for about 45 minutes. And I think I managed to reach exactly the kind of state of “acute stress” Neil was describing in his post.

It was a difficult new activity for me, but it was fun. It was challenging, but in a controlled way. I felt as though I was pushing the limits of my nervous system, in terms of coordinating movement patterns that were unfamiliar to me, while at the same time limiting the overall stress to my system. (In fact, I think I probably was reducing my overall stress at that point– it was the end of a good day, I had all the time in the world, and I really love my music).

I think this is the kind of activity that, when performed regularly, could have a positive impact on reshaping the way the nervous system regulates pain signals. It’s “distracting,” in a healthy and fun way.

Obviously these would be topics for further research, but I think two additional components of what I did, which add to its helpfulness, are

This is what I find so fascinating about Neil’s approach to chronic pain treatment— an activity can be therapeutic not just because it makes us stronger, or increases our endurance, but because of its impact on the nervous system.

It’s okay to treat pain and the nervous system as your top priority, not just as a side effect or the means to an end of another exercise program.

***

I find the concept of treating nervous system directly to be so fascinating, and I hope you do too! If you want to know more, I would definitely suggest checking out more of Neil Pearson’s work. And, as always, let me know if you have any questions or comments!

We normally think of stress in as the chronic, ongoing stress that continues for weeks on end, taking a toll on our body in the process. However, there are ways in which acute stress– that is, stress that only occurs during a short period of time, and then comes to an end– can actually benefit our bodies.

Neil writes,

If you want to make a muscle stronger, use it more. If you want to grow more tolerant of an irritating or bothersome sensation or experience, step up to it. Face it. In time, it will bother you less.

Try playing a string instrument for the first time, and feel the intense pain from pushing down strings with your fingertips. Keep doing it and your body will adapt, even creating a callous as a protective response, just like woodworkers and carpenters have on their hands and dancers have on their feet. In other words, when you stress your body, typically it responds by being better able to tolerate that stress next time.

We are built to survive. If there’s anything I learned in my health and science classes, it’s that our bodies are built to adapt specifically in response to the stresses we experience. If we continually perform a certain movement, the muscles that perform that movement will become stronger and better suited to the task.

If we perform a new task repeatedly, we will get better at it, until it becomes second nature. Our nervous systems will change, and our mental map of this task will become more developed.

Our bodies crave the kind of challenge that we can rise to. As Neil says, “acute stress is adaptive. This makes sense. When we exercise – challenging our physical abilities – we are not just improving our bodies physically; we are also making changes in our nervous systems.”

So. How can people with chronic pain and health issues use acute stress to our advantage?

Neil suggests that we harness our body’s ability to grow and change in ways that can benefit us. By teaching our bodies to do new things, we can give our nervous systems something to process other than pain, and try to jump-start that healthy, adaptive response.

If pain has been preventing you from exercising, Neil suggests:

Create acute stress while limiting the chronic stress of a flare-up: Make a daily plan to try an activity (or part of an activity) you want to do, but do it while you do your very best to keep your breathing even, your body tension low (only use as much as you need for the activity), and your stress level as low as possible.

So basically: we stress our bodies– our nervous systems, in particular, but also our muscles– in new ways. But we make sure we are in the right place, mentally and physiologically, while we do it, by proactively taking steps to keep our nervous systems from going into fight or flight mode.

There’s even more in Neil’s article. He talks about some of the positive effects of stress and exercise on the brain– how chronic pain can dim these effects, but how the techniques he suggest might present a way around that. Definitely check it out!

***

All this talk about the positive aspects of stress reminds me of health psychologist Kelly McGonigal’s excellent TED talk on “How to Make Stress Your Friend.” I’ve posted about it on my blog before, because it’s just really so great.

In this talk, McGonigal explains more about how stress can actually be a healthy motivator, seeking us to reach out to others and form social supports, and also spurring us on to create meaning in our lives. She also suggests that when we learn to view stress as a potentially positive factor, it can actually limit some of the negative effects we normally assume stress will have on us.

There’s so much more to say, but for now, I think I’ll let you check these two resources out! Happy reading/Youtubing– let me know what you think!

Update, Jan. 2018: Hi everyone– I’ve learned a ton since I wrote this post. Be sure to check out my other site, My Sacroiliac Joint Saga!

And now, the original post:

I’ve held off on writing this post until I was absolutely sure, but the time has come for me to make my official pronouncement.

In my post at the end of this past June, I explained how my SI joints were unexpectedly doing better following my 3 weeks in California. At first, I had thought it was something different about my routine, or being distracted by being around friends. However, once I got home and attempted to resume my regular chiropractic visits, I found myself feeling less stable. Maybe it wasn’t Boston, it wasn’t the East Coast weather, it wasn’t my routine… it was the chiropractor.

****

Now, let me back up. When I first developed my SI joint problem 5 years ago (God, has it really been that long?) my chiropractor was literally the only medical professional who could even begin to explain what was going on, much less free my leg when one side of my pelvis locked-up.

I saw several medical professionals, including two physiatrists and an orthopedist. I also saw a total of seven different physical therapists. No one could tell me with any clarity what was wrong.

I saw one misguided physical therapist who specialized in “manual therapy,” meaning she actually put her hands on my hips and lower back and tried to use pressure to re-align me. This resulted in absolutely no change.

The ONLY person who seemed to be able to help me at all was my chiropractor. I walked into his office with my pelvis completely locked up, feeling as though someone had tied a belt around my legs– that’s about how well I could move them– on the verge of tears. “Oh,” he said calmly. “It’s your sacroiliac joint.”

And with a few clicks of his “activator” tool, my legs and I were free.

****

I wanted to give you this backstory so that you can see how, at one point in time, I was so grateful for the help of my chiropractor. He truly helped me at a time when no one else was able to; when all anyone else gave me were strange looks and exercises I was unable to do– followed by more strange looks when I tried to explain that it’s not that I didn’t want to do the exercises, it’s not even that pain was stopping me— it’s that I literally did not have control over my legs. When my hips were stuck, my legs were stuck.

My chiropractor was able to explain to me the anatomy of the joint, and how this mysterious pain on the sides of my lower back could actually be related to me being unable to move my legs. He made me feel that I wasn’t a freak– he told me that this problem was actually quite common– and on top of that– he could make the problem (temporarily) go away.

It’s also my chiropractor who convinced me to finally work out in a pool. Despite all of my hesitations, and insistence that I really just wanted to work out on land… he repeatedly did his best to convince me that this problem was probably going to be permanent unless I found a way to strengthen my muscles without putting more stress on the joint. The adjustments were only going to be a temporary fix, he explained, until I created more muscle strength to hold the joints in place.

He was right about that, too. I didn’t really start to get better at all until I finally joined a pool. Up until that point, my land exercises just seemed to make things worse. (The pool was turning point #1).

I got even better, still, when I truly began to follow a thorough stretching routine. For a while I didn’t know how to stretch because the simple act of getting down on the floor was enough to throw my SI joints out of whack. Undoing my entire chiropractic adjustment just for the sake of stretching seemed backwards; like undoing the foundation of the building in order to adjust something on the roof.

However, I eventually found this really awesome stretching table on Amazon, and honestly– it changed my life. Finally I was able to lie down and do all of my stretches in a way that didn’t impact my hips. So that was turning point #2.

That was my life for a few years: pool, stretching, chiropractor. My life revolved around this problem, because there didn’t seem to be much of an alternative. Once my hips locked up, all else ground to a halt. As I said before, when my hips were really locked, it was as though my whole body was in chains. It honestly felt as though someone had tied a belt around my upper thighs; it was sometimes really difficult to put one foot in front of another.

But it wasn’t a permanent disability either. It made no sense to just give up, accept that I couldn’t walk, and sit in a wheelchair. Because I could walk, when my hips were aligned. During those first few moments after I left the chiropractor, I felt totally perfect and free. It’s just that things never stayed that way.

So I did my best, doggedly. I was afraid to drive– afraid that if something went wrong and I had to slam my foot on the break, I’d hurt my hip. So I had my parents drive me to the pool at the gym. Almost every night, I’d go just before closing, trying to find a time when the water wasn’t so choppy. I was so weak and out of shape when I first started going that everything hurt, if I went at at time when there were tons of lap swimmers.

So I’d try to go right before closing, when most people had already gotten out to shower. I’d stay in until the very end and then more or less have to rush outside, with my hair still wet.

There are a lot of pictures of me taken during that time period, of me out with my friends in downtown Boston. All of them are dressed up– high heels, makeup, straightened hair. And there I am– my outfit is cute, but my hair is still wet. (It sounds like a small thing, but honestly– I think my inability to keep up appearances actually affected some of my “friendships,” which I later realized weren’t really friendships. More on that later).

I was willing to make sacrifices for the sake of getting over this problem. But now I am so frustrated, looking back, because the whole thing seems so pointless.

Turning point #3 came when one of my physical therapists finally showed me how to adjust my SI joints myself using the Muscle Energy Technique. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this was also life-changing, because now I did not need to depend on my chiropractor. When my leg got stuck, I was able to free it myself.

That brings me up to where I was in February, when I wrote my post about how I was doing better and things were feeling more stable. I had a feeling the end was sort of in sight, because I was starting to be able to do more and more. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet; I still had to check my SI joint and do my self-adjustments several times a day.

I can honestly tell you that my SI joints have not locked up once all summer. Things have not necessarily felt perfect, but I can tell it’s just muscle imbalance; it’s not the joint.

That same horrible dull ache at the intersection of my spine and pelvis? Gone. Just a memory at this point.

That awful, painstaking feeling of not being able to move my legs, of having a belt wrapped around my upper thighs? Gone. I’m almost starting to forget what it felt ike.

****

It is at once exhilarating and frustrating to realize that I think the very thing which got me started on my road to healing– the chiropractic adjustments– actually became detrimental in the end.

I have seen at least one bad chiropractor who I don’t trust, and would never for a million dollars allow to touch me again.

I don’t see my chiropractor that way.

I think he was, actually, able to correctly diagnose the problem, and I also do think his adjustments were putting my joints into proper alignment.

It’s just that, to an extent, I think my body also needed to be able to find an equilibrium.

The adjustments became too much, somehow. Perhaps they were too much force for my ligaments, or perhaps they overly disrupted the pattern my muscles were used to holding everything in.

I definitely don’t feel that I was permanently injured by them, or anything like that.

It’s just that, at some point, my body just wanted to be able to locate some sort of homeostasis. For my muscles and nervous system to have a chance to adapt to the way things were– even if, alignment-wise, it wasn’t “perfect.”

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that I would have gotten better if I had just left my SI joints alone, and allowed them to stay “stuck.” That absolutely 100% would have failed. When I think back to that horrible, dull, aching, grinding sensation, of two parts of the joint rubbing together in a way they were never meant to rub together… no. Absolutely not. There was no way any form of healing could have come out of that. You can’t build muscle and get stronger when you can’t even move one of your legs.

But the chiropractic adjustments were just too rough.

I wish I had been shown how to do the self-adjustments from the beginning. As I’ve learned in all of my PT prerequisite classes, your body has built-in reflexes that keep you from injuring yourself during normal movement. When you perform a self-adjustment for the SI joint (which involves contracting certain muscles around the joint in a particular way), your nervous system will use these special reflexes to ensure that you don’t injure yourself, or put unhealthy levels of strain on the joint. There is a level of precision here that no chiropractic adjustment can re-create.

Now, to be fair: I don’t know that I would have been able to develop the skills necessary to identify which way I needed to actually adjust my SI joints, without all of the feedback I’d gotten in my chiropractic visits over the years. Compared to my PT, I actually think my chiropractor is better at diagnosing exactly what’s happening in the joint.

It’s just that his actual method of fixing that problem ends up backfiring.

Now that I know what I know, I have a lot of ideas for how someone like me could have been helped out of this situation a lot more quickly.

For example, having a PT who really took the time to teach about the SI joint, rather than just prescribing exercises.

Not just about the anatomy of the joint, but how to self-diagnose which way your pelvis is rotated, as in my experience, the self-adjustments have been the way to all healing.

Of course, as I write this, I also reflect back on the fact that I was lucky to find a PT who knew about the SI joint at all. Back in 2011, it didn’t seem that most physical therapists were aware that it could cause problems (although thankfully, that seems to be changing).

I am going to continue to talk about the SI joint– both in terms of chronicling my own healing, as well as just to hopefully raise awareness.